Sigma
Spring 2010
2010 Corporate Projects Advisory
Coca-Cola
Team Members: Eric Johnson, Jane O’Donnell, Nicole Sanhamel, Joseph Threatt
Advisor: Piyush Kumar
The project for Coca-Cola North America featured two key portions, one being an
online survey and the second being online qualitative research through a Facebook group
of respondents. The survey focused on usage, attitudes, and perceptions of a variety of
brands, and explored these with both qualitative and quantitative questions. The survey also featured two new research tools pioneered by UGA’s Piyush Kumar. The tools
included a brand difference map generated by dynamically coding qualitative responses
with a proprietary semantic engine and a tool for measuring a brand’s vulnerability to
competitors in a purchase situation.
Colgate-Palmolive
Team Members: Michelle Carrier, Raluca Corobana, Laura Dahlgren, Matt Stenger
Advisor: Rich Fox
Colgate was interested in evaluating consumer perceptions and the usage experience of
a recently launched product among college students. The goal was to diagnose low trial
and repeat rates among this consumer group and to determine the best ways to increase
product excitement and repeat purchases. To achieve these objectives, the Colgate team
conducted a two-phase research study. A qualitative phase that consisted of product placement and follow-up focus groups was the predecessor to a quantitative phase utilizing an
online survey (distributed via Facebook).
The different team members have alternated roles over the course of the project, allowing each to develop skills related to leadership, project management, report writing, and
analysis. This project was a great way for a team to apply methodologies and skills learned
through coursework.
dunnhumby
Team Members: Garrett Brewer, Kimberly Carrasco-Gregory, Xiaona Hu, Lena Lyepyenina
Advisor: Charlotte Mason
The team worked as dunnhumby research consultants for a large CPG client who specializes in the Air Care category. The team used dunnhumby’s web-based business intelcontinued on page 2
Board
Update
After several years of chairing the
advisory board,
James Mendelsohn,
Vice President,
Capital One
Financial is stepping
down. The MMR
program has benefited greatly under
James’ leadership,
and we thank him
Miller
for his outstanding service. James and Capital One will
continue to serve on the advisory board.
Jeff Miller, president and CEO of Burke,
Inc., is the new Chairman of the MMR
Advisory Board.
With changes in the MMR Director
position and board chair, the role and
structure of the Advisory Board is currently in a state of transition. Since coming on
board in the summer of 2008, Charlotte
Mason and the board have been rethinking all aspects of the Advisory Board. One
of the outcomes of these early discussions
has been the realization that the Executive
Partner model of board composition and
governance may have run its course. In
its place, a steering committee has been
established to serve as the primary interface between the MMR Program management and the Advisory Board. The memcontinued on page 4
projects
continued from 1
ligence software to analyze category trends, pinpoint
specific problems and offer our client real-world solutions.
This project was an excellent learning tool, as the
team worked closely with three dunnhumby researchers who provided a tremendous amount of information about retail research consulting.
Eli Lilly
Team Members: Laura Engstrom, Celina Iglesia,
Susan Little, Dan Meinwald
Advisor: Son Lam
Eli Lilly asked the team to determine whether there
is a link between brand performance and corporate
brand equity and to investigate differences between
endocrinologists and primary care physicians, as it
relates to the study. By merging smaller datasets into
a single database, the team applied data mining analytical techniques to render insights. Dimensions that
drive market share were identified. In addition to
utilizing quantitative tools learned in class, the team
demonstrated their skills in project management.
Vistakon
Team Members: Amy Caira, Lindsey Coker, Michael
Perri, Jeff Russell, Michael Whalen
Advisor: Candice Hollenbeck
The Vistakon team developed a multi stage study to
determine how college students use the Internet to
gain information about and make purchase decisions
regarding contact lenses. This study included three
stages of research.
The first stage involved evaluating secondary
research on the nature of the contact lens industry and
the role of the Internet on consumer decisions. Next,
the researchers conducted focus groups to discuss the
specific role of the Internet in the process of gathering
information about contact lenses.
The information that surfaced from the focus
groups spurred the development of Internet tasks
given to informants during the third stage of the
study. During these tasks, the informants searched
for contact lens information online while researchers
observed. After the task, the informant and researcher
had in-depth interviews regarding the search process.
From the Director
CONGRATULATIONS MMR CLASS OF 2010
A week ago today, I joined our current MMR class and
their families for a final graduation dinner in Athens
before they start the next stage of their professional
lives. Despite the struggling economy and weak job
market, the MMR class of 2010 fared well. 90% of the
class has job offers with a number of students choosing between multiple offers. Our graduates are heading to locations throughout the country—including
Mason
Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Arkansas, New York,
Connecticut and Washington, DC.
WELCOME CLASS OF 2011
In a few short weeks, the class of 2011 will take up residence in Athens
– arriving from Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois,
Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South
Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Singapore, China and Turkey. That the Terry
MMR draws students from such a wide geography and that employers equally
distant seek our graduates is evidence of the reputation of the program and
our students. It is key to the continued success of the program that we attract
both excellent students and employers across the nation and world.
INCREASING COMPETITION AMONG MMR PROGRAMS
Graduate programs in Marketing Research and the recent emergence of similar programs in ‘Marketing Analytics’ are small in number compared with
MBA programs. As a result there are no rankings by BusinessWeek, U.S New
& World Report, or Financial Times. Word-of-mouth and web searches are
how most students ‘find’ us. I believe we have the best program going – but
the competition is increasing. Michigan State is about to launch a MMR program and in January, 2010 Columbia University approved a three-semester
Master of Science in Marketing “to fill the need for more analytically trained
market researchers.”
EXPANDING NEED FOR PROFESSIONALS IN MARKETING RESEARCH
Recent best-sellers including Competing on Analytics, its sequel Analytics at
Work, The Numerati, and SuperCrunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers is the
New Way to Be Smart taut the possibilities for analytically based decisions.
And marketing is front and center in this analytical surge:
“I think marketing is the new finance. In the 1960s and 1970s we got interesting
data and a lot of analytic fire power focused on that data. So we saw huge gains
in understanding performance in the finance industry. I think marketing is in
the same place: now we’re getting a lot of really good data, we have tools, we have
methods, we have smart people working on it. ”
— Wall Street Journal, interview with Hal Varian,
Chief Economist at Google, July 19, 2007
Varian goes on to offer the following career advice: “If you are looking for a
career where your services will be in high demand, you should find something
where you provide a scarce, complementary service to something that is getting ubiquitous and cheap. So what’s getting ubiquitous and cheap? Data.
continued on page 4
2 • MMR Newsletter
Spring 2010
New Faculty Additions
Guiyang Xiong recently completed his PhD in Marketing at Emory University. He
received his Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in
Finance from Fudan University in China. Prior to starting his PhD
study at Emory, Guiyang worked at MasterCard International in
Shanghai and Citigroup in Shanghai. Guiyang’s research interests
are in the areas of the marketing-finance interface, B2B marketing,
social networks, social media, new product management, and entrepreneurship. Guiyang’s research study, “Transforming Social Capital
into Financial Value in IPOs: The Moderating Role of Absorptive
Capacity in Young Technology Firms’ B2B Relationships,” is part
Xiong
of his dissertation and has been selected as a winner in the 2008
Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) Doctoral Award Competition.
Anindita Chakravarty is completing her PhD at Pennsylvania State University. She
received her undergraduate degree in Chemistry and her MBA in
India. She worked as a sales manager for a major bank in India
for two years where she was responsible for direct sales to small
and medium enterprises. Anindita’s dissertation research focuses
on marketing decisions that are essentially tradeoffs between two
equally important strategies. She is investigating how such decisions
are made in firms, as well as how such decisions influence financial
returns. Anindita is also interested in new product innovation and
the innovative uses of the internet in marketing new products.
Chakravarty
Anindita has published her research in the International Journal of
Research in Marketing and has papers forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing and the
Journal of Interactive Marketing.
Andrew Kaikati is completing his PhD at the University of Minnesota. He also has
an MBA degree from Washington University in St. Louis, an
Honors Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from Saint Louis
University, and worked for several years in management consulting and brand management. Andrew’s research interests include
word-of-mouth, social influence and persuasion, and effects of
personal values on consumer behaviors. His dissertation work
focuses on examining underlying drivers of word-of-mouth communication about products and services. Andrew has published
papers in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and California
Kaikati
Management Review, and he has a paper forthcoming in the
Journal of Marketing Research. His research has been presented at the ACR and SCP conferences.
Alumni
Corner
1984
Charles Eden was promoted in November 2009 to Senior Vice President at
Burke, Inc. Charles also celebrated his
25th anniversary with Burke in 2009. He
manages Burke’s client service office in
Atlanta, GA.
2002
Meggie Dimitrova is currently the
Manager of Strategic Insights within
the Professional Oral Care division of
Colgate-Palmolive.
2003
Samy Markdolker will move to ORC
(Opinion Research Corporation) in March
2010 to establish their operations in
South East Asia with HQ in Singapore.
Previously, Samy was with TNS Singapore.
2006
Juli Pomerantz, (MMR ’06), and Jeff
Russell, (MMR ’10) were married on
March 13, 2010 in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida. Juli is currently a Consumer
Research Manager at The Kroger Co.,
and Jeff will be returning to Directions
Research as an Analyst this May.
Master of Marketing Research
Robert T. Sumichrast, Dean
Charlotte Mason, Director, MMR
Richard Fox, Graduate Coordinator, MMR
Jamese Meyer, Program Coordinator, MMR
Maria Celina Iglesia (MMR ’10), Newsletter Coordinator
The University of Georgia
Terry College of Business, Brooks Hall, Athens, Georgia
(706) 542-0426 • www.terry.uga.edu/mmr/
Spring 2010
MMR Newsletter • 3
from the director
Board
continued from 2
continued from 1
And what is complementary to data? Analysis. So my recommendation is to take lots of courses about how to manipulate and
analyze data: databases, machine learning, econometrics, statistics,
visualization, and so on.” (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.
com/2008/02/25/hal-varian-answers-your-questions/)
bers of the Steering Committee are:
TERRY MMR MEETS THE CHALLENGE
The need for well-trained market researchers is stronger than ever.
The Terry MMR was the first Master’s in Marketing Research
and, of course, is still the best. We are expanding our faculty with
new hires focused around quantitative skills so that we can keep
not just abreast of, but ahead of current analytical trends. Our
graduates are up to date with the latest developments and ready
to start on day one. That is why they are so sought after.
However, long term recognition also depends on our alumni
and other ambassadors of the program. Keep your eyes open for
prospective future MMRs – people with an interest in market
research, an aptitude for the skills involved, and – ideally – some
experience in the field. When you find the right candidates, point
them our way!
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Steering Committee will formally meet twice a year,
immediately preceding general Advisory Board Meetings. In addition to the Steering Committee, three standing committees have
been established. These committees represent enduring roles for
the board in its service to the program. Board members will align
themselves with one of these ongoing committees:
•
On-Site Company Visits
•
•
For the spring semester, the class was invited back to
visit MMR Research Associates in Roswell, GA, and BBDO in
Atlanta, GA. The class also visited User Insight, a full-service
user experience research firm in Atlanta, GA. These visits provided insightful perspectives in marketing research.
The main speaker from MMR Research Associates, Bruce
Olsen, discussed how to deliver effective reports and communicate insights to clients. He was later joined by Brian Stifel
of Home Depot during the question and answer session. In
the BBDO visit, the class had the opportunity to learn about
creative development research and the emergence of social
media. Additional topics covered in the visit included brand &
advertising evaluation and customer relationship management.
During the User Insight visit, the class was exposed to qualitative research techniques for enhancing online user experience.
4 • MMR Newsletter
Board Chair - Jeff Miller
Chair Emeritus - James Mendelsohn
President of theUGA MMR Alumni Association Chris Miller
Chair of Corporate Outreach Committee Michael Anderson, dunnhumby USA
Chair of Student Skills Committee - pending
Department Head / MMR Director - Charlotte Mason
MMR Graduate Coordinator - Rich Fox
MMR Student of the Year (ex officio) Raluca Corobana (MMR ’10)
Corporate Outreach Committee - Michael Anderson, Chair
• Provides a link between the MMR program and the larger
marketing research industry.
• Activities include recruiting Board members, industry
public relations and marketing, student placement, and
project sponsorships.
Student Skills Committee - Pending
• Focused on ensuring MMR students are well prepared for
industry employment.
• Activities include recommendations on Seminar Series
topics, emerging topics/issues in the industry, “soft skill”
development such as consulting and leadership.
Alumni Engagement - Chris Miller, Chair
• Help channel the significant asset that is the MMR alumni toward the betterment of the program.
• Activities include oversight of the Mentor program, student recruitment, and fund raising.
The Steering Committee, while in its infancy, is currently
rethinking what it means to be a member of the MMR Advisory
Board. The role of the Board itself, its composition, its value
proposition to member companies, and the structure of the financial obligation are all under review. More information about
the direction of these deliberations, and the outcomes from the
standing committees will be shared as they become available. The
goal is to have an active and engaged board that brings value to
the MMR program and receives value from their participation in
return. There is a great deal of energy from both board members
and the MMR program leadership to work though these transition issues so a stronger board can emerge that can better help to
move the program forward.
Spring 2010